Consciousness and the Vegetative State

There will be a workshop on Consciousness and the Vegetative State this Thursday-Friday March 26-27 at the ANU (National Europe Centre at 1 Liversidge St), sponsored by the Centre for Consciousness.  The workshop will bring together scientists and philosophers (four of each) to discuss foundational issues raised by recent work on vegetative state, especially the use of brain imaging in an attempt to detect signs of consciousness.  If you plan to attend, please email dicrosse [[at]] coombs.anu.edu.au.

Thursday March 26

10-11:20 David Reutens (Queensland Brain Institute), Clinical Differentiation of Vegetative State from its Mimics

11:40-1   Jakob Hohwy (Philosophy, Monash), Dimensions of Consciousness

2-3:20     Malcolm Horne (Florey Institute), Functional Neuroimaging and Withdrawal of Life-Sustaining Treatment from Vegetative Patients

4-5:20     Neil Levy (Philosophy, Melbourne/Oxford), Consciousness in the Vegetative State: Some Residual Doubts.

7             Conference Dinner

Friday March 27

10-11:20 Levin Kuhlmann (Neuroengineering, Melbourne), The Functional and Anatomical Correlates of Awareness: MRI Investigations of Patients with Post-Coma Unresponsiveness.

11:40-1   Tim Bayne (Philosophy, Oxford), The Vegetative State and the Problem of Other Minds

2-3:20     Peter McCullagh (John Curtin School, ANU), Three Decades of Begging the Question: An Epistemological Slant on PVS

4-5:20     David Chalmers (Philosophy/Centre for Consciousness, ANU), Wrap-up /Discussion

Comments

[M.]

"The workshop will bring together scientists and philosophers" - is this a slip of the pen?

[Stephen Rizzo]

Any chance these papers will appear online?

[djc]

M: No. I'm not sure why it would be!

Stephen: Probably not as a group. The workshop (which was great) was very informal and a number of the papers aren't even written yet. You might be able to find relevant papers by one or two of the authors online by googling their names and "vegetative state".